Air pollution is a major environmental challenge causing tangible health, economic and climatic effects. In many developing regions of the world, emissions are increasing rapidly and are set to rise dramatically in the next century if the conventional development path is followed. Industrialized countries take these concerns more seriously and concerted efforts are made to reduce air pollution.
Mercury is a toxic environmental pollutant that is among the most highly bio-magnified and bio-accumulated trace metal in the human food chain. Mercury comes from a range of natural sources such as volcanoes, soils, undersea vents, mercury-rich geological zones and forest fires, as well as from fresh water lakes, rivers and the oceans. However, human activity has increased the amount of mercury in the environment in several ways, including through a variety of combustion and industrial processes like coal-fired power generation, metal mining and smelting and waste incineration.
Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and various halocarbons are known to be important participant gases to greenhouse emissions. Concerns are raised also about other pollutants and green house gas co-pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), volatile organic compounds (VOC) as well as particulate matter (aerosols), as sources of grave environmental problems.
Several techniques are known to reduce the emission of these pollutants. Adsorption is one technique used, but most known adsorbents are efficient at a relatively low temperature and become often less useful when used at high temperature, when the undesired compounds are released.
Therefore, it would be highly desirable to develop a method and an apparatus for adsorbing contaminants and/or pollutants from a hot contaminated fluid which will improve the efficiency of the adsorbent by reducing the temperature of the contaminated fluid.
It is also clear that the pollutants are not only required to be merely removed from a fluid stream, but also need to be recycled. However the recycling techniques should be energetically efficient with minimum adverse impacts on the environment.
Hence, a complete system and method, which utilize a minimum of energy, involving (a) one or more adsorbent interface(s), (b) an efficient cooling of the polluted fluid, (c) a recycling-reusage of adsorbents, and (d) a recovery of useful materials from waste, are desirable to meet the challenges of minimizing the adverse impacts on the environment.